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This article examines the events surrounding the abdication of the mid-8th-century Lombard king Ratchis and the accession of his successor, king Aistulf, as presented in contemporary sources, and as remembered in later historiographical and documentary sources from the monasteries of Montecassino, Volturno, Farfa, Monte Soratte, Monte Amiata and Nonantola. A close reading complicates the accepted narrative (Ratchis abdicated, Aistulf took power) that quickly took hold, and demonstrates how, because monasteries were actively involved in the power-politics of Ratchis’ and Aistulf’s reigns, and because property claims (and property documents) and the Lombard past continued to matter in later centuries, 10th- to 12th-century monks continued to remember and rework their materials related to this past.
